An undercover agent met Wendy Coe behind her workplace in 2023 after police received a tip about an alleged effort to find a killer.
CODY, Wyo. — The criminal case against Wendy Coe took shape behind the store where she worked, where investigators say a state agent wearing a recording device posed as a hit man and discussed the death of her daughter’s boyfriend. Nearly three years later, that undercover encounter has ended not with a murder-solicitation trial but with Coe pleading no contest to a reduced felony.
The Sept. 21, 2026, plea to attempted aggravated assault and battery closes off a trial over whether Coe solicited first-degree murder and shifts the case toward sentencing. Prosecutors agreed not to recommend more than five to eight years in prison, while defense attorney Sam Krone can argue for probation. District Judge Bill Simpson ordered a presentence investigation after accepting the plea. The agreement represents a major reduction from the original accusation, which exposed Coe to a possible life sentence. A no-contest plea is not a formal admission that the accused committed the conduct alleged, but it permits conviction and sentencing as though a guilty plea had been entered.
The undercover meeting did not begin with an officer randomly approaching Coe. According to an evidentiary affidavit described in local reporting, Cody police first received information from a concerned person who said Coe had spent about two weeks trying to find somebody willing to kill her daughter’s boyfriend. Prosecutors later said she had contacted or approached other people before the state’s agent became involved. Investigators then arranged for an agent with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation to present himself as someone available for the proposed job. That asserted history became central to the prosecution’s later answer to Coe’s claim that police had entrapped her.
On Dec. 20, 2023, the undercover agent called Coe and said he was coming to Cody, according to the affidavit. She directed him to the store where she worked and suggested they move to a rear area away from cameras. Other officers monitored as the agent recorded the conversation. Investigators said Coe spoke about her daughter’s relationship and accused the boyfriend of controlling behavior and drug use. She further alleged that he repeatedly got her daughter using drugs. The available court reporting does not establish those accusations against the boyfriend as independently proven facts, and they are relevant here because investigators said Coe presented them as her reason for wanting him removed from her daughter’s life.
Money quickly became a practical obstacle. The undercover agent proposed a price of $10,000, and investigators said Coe considered that amount fair but could not pay it immediately. The conversation also addressed how a death could appear to others. According to the affidavit, Coe mentioned a fatal overdose as one possibility and said an overdose in the South Fork area would not seem unusual. When the agent said he would rather shoot the man, the affidavit quotes Coe replying, “Works for me.” The agent also asked for information that could help identify and locate the intended target, and Coe allegedly agreed to provide photographs, a vehicle description, an address and employment information.
What happened the next day complicated the picture that would eventually be argued in court. Coe told the agent she could not come up with the money, according to investigators. She reportedly said she might have some funds after the new year and more after receiving a raise in the spring. When the agent floated the possibility of lowering the price, Coe rejected that route and said there was “too much risk involved.” Law enforcement arrested her Dec. 21. No attack occurred, and the daughter’s boyfriend was not killed. The prosecution nevertheless charged Coe with solicitation to commit first-degree murder, focusing on the alleged request and agreement rather than a completed violent act.
At the start of the court case, the consequences of that charge were severe. Coe pleaded not guilty in January 2024 while being held on a $50,000 cash or surety bond. She spent roughly seven months in custody before posting a surety bond, according to later reporting. The prospect of a life sentence remained while the case moved slowly through Park County District Court. Coe waived speedy-trial rights in April 2024, and the case later encountered a separate question about her ability to participate in the proceedings. Those developments turned a sting that unfolded over roughly two days into litigation lasting years.
The defense eventually placed police tactics at the heart of its trial strategy. In July 2025, Krone notified the state that Coe intended to rely on entrapment. The argument sought to distinguish between a person already willing to commit a crime and one pushed into criminal conduct by law enforcement. Prosecutor Larry Eichele rejected the defense’s framing. He pointed to the original citizen tip and allegations that Coe had previously sought other people to carry out the killing. In his account, investigators did not plant the idea. The undercover agent, he wrote, “merely followed her lead.” Eichele asked the court to prevent the defense from presenting entrapment to jurors.
The case also paused for a competency review. A Wyoming State Hospital psychologist evaluated Coe in May 2025, and a stipulated court order found that she was able to understand the proceedings, rationally conduct a defense and cooperate with her lawyer. Simpson later put the case back on a path toward trial. The competency ruling did not decide whether Coe committed the charged offense and did not resolve the entrapment dispute. Instead, it addressed whether she had the mental capacity required to participate in her defense. With that procedural question settled, the prosecution and defense continued toward a potential jury proceeding before reaching the 2026 plea agreement.
The eventual bargain changed both the legal label and the punishment at issue. Instead of asking jurors to decide a solicitation-of-first-degree-murder charge carrying potential life imprisonment, the state accepted a no-contest plea to attempted aggravated assault and battery. The prosecution agreed to limit its sentencing request, while the defense did not surrender the right to ask for probation. The arrangement also means that disputed questions about precisely what Coe intended, whether she would have gone forward if she had the money and whether the undercover agent’s actions crossed the line into entrapment will not be resolved through a verdict after a full trial.
Simpson must now decide the punishment after reviewing the presentence report. Such an investigation gives the court information beyond the recorded sting itself, including a defendant’s work and family background, education and criminal history. The prosecution can argue for a prison term within its agreed limit, and Coe’s lawyer can argue that community supervision is appropriate. The judge is not simply assigning the punishment that either side requests; sentencing remains a judicial decision subject to the plea and applicable law.
No attack was carried out against the daughter’s boyfriend, and the original allegation that Coe solicited his murder will no longer be decided at trial. Her no-contest plea instead leaves the court with a narrower question: what punishment is appropriate for attempted aggravated assault and battery. That decision remains with Simpson after a prosecution that began with an undercover operation in December 2023.
Author note: Last updated November 8, 2026.